by Sharp, Tracy
“Why do you want to go home, Jess? There’s nobody there.” I smoothed a lock of strawberry-blond hair from his forehead.
“Cuz mommy might be there now. She might be back from her ‘cation.”
“She’s not on vacation, Jess.”
“Daddy said she’s on ‘cation.” He looked at me with huge, grey eyes filled with confusion.
I couldn’t hurt him by telling him that she was never coming home again. Or that I hoped that she wouldn’t because I couldn’t stand to watch her that way anymore. Most of all, I couldn’t stand the accusation in her eyes when she looked me.
“Okay, Jess. We’ll go home.”
I took him by his small hand and began the trek back home, where the only mother Jesse would ever have again would be me.
* * *
I blinked the past away and wrapped my arms around Jesse. Then we left the prison and I took him home again.
“Cool,” Jesse said as he eyed all the workout equipment. “Very cool.”
He’d bulked up during his time in prison. Not having had a computer to play with, he’d turned to weightlifting. I was glad the equipment wasn’t going be to an eyesore for him since I really had nowhere else to put it. The basement was more like a cellar, complete with a dirt floor.
“Glad you like it. You’re welcome to the equipment. Hope you don’t mind me coming in here to work out.”
“Nah. Go for it.” He placed his bag on the double bed, which sat on the left side of the room. Buddy sat beside him, looking up at him.
“Looks like you’ve made a friend,” I said. Buddy and Jesse seemed to connect immediately.
Jesse smiled and patted Buddy on the head. “I could use one. Haven’t had one in a while. Not one I could bring home to you, anyway.” He grinned and winked.
“No. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t.” The thought of what prison pals he might’ve had made me cringe. “So, this is the place. Make yourself at home.”
He plopped himself down on the bed. “Don’t mind if I do.”
“You hungry?” My stomach was growling.
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“Chicken stir-fry okay?”
“Ugh. Health food.”
“I’m fresh out of slop and gruel.”
He chuckled. “Chicken stir-fry will have to do, then.”
I smiled. “Coming right up.”
As I chopped vegetables, sliced chicken and threw them into a wok, I thought on what Jesse could do to keep his mind occupied. He needed a job. He needed to earn his own money or he’d start feeling like a free-loader pretty quickly. I know my brother and he wouldn’t live under my roof for long before he began to feel like a charity case. Then he might get into trouble.
So he needed a job which would pay all right and allow him to use his mind and creativity. There weren’t any off the top of my head I could think of that had a demand for ex-cons. I sighed and leaned against the counter, sipping a beer and watching the stir-fry sizzle in the wok. He wanted to be a repo agent. There was no way in hell I was going to put him into that much danger. He’s my brother and I needed to protect him. He’d been through enough already.
Who would give him a second chance to do well in life? Who would watch over him when I couldn’t do it myself?
Suddenly an idea came to me and I smiled.
Jack.
Chapter Eighteen
“So you all set to start building bikes, Jess?” Jack’s voice boomed in the shop. He was happy to see Jesse and more than glad to have him working for him.
“I’m stoked, man! Where do I start?” Jesse stood before a bike frame, looking at it with a glint in his eye. It was a blank canvas he couldn’t wait to start working on.
Jack led him to where Patrick Thompson stood assembling a purple motorcycle. Patrick had always been a man of few words, and although he hadn’t seen me in several years, he only nodded at me with his hand slightly raised before turning his attention back to working on the bike. He’d buzzed his long, blond hair off since I’d seen him last. This was an improvement since he was a handsome man in a rough, jagged kind of way.
Sharon Laporte looked exactly the same. She still kept her dark hair cropped short and was still very thin. Only a few lines around her eyes and mouth betrayed her age. She’d smiled at me when we came in before going back to whatever she was doing at her desk. She’d always been pretty shy. Jesse found her fascinating, glancing over at her every few moments. I had the feeling he’d have his knuckles rapped for it soon enough when Jack’s patience ran out. I wondered where Sean was.
As if on cue, Sean Graham came swaggering into the shop, wind blown and looking like he belonged in a cowboy movie. His sandy curls were shorter but he still wore snug, worn looking jeans and cowboy boots. Unbelievably, he looked far better than he had all those years ago and I had to work at keeping my mouth from falling open.
“Leah! I heard you’d come out of hibernation. How’ve ya been?” He walked over to me and wrapped me in finely sculpted arms.
“Fine.” I was a little breathless. There didn’t seem to be enough air in the room all of a sudden. “I’ve been good. How about you?” My eyes moved over his chest. I couldn’t help but notice the way his navy-colored “Blue Lightning” t-shirt seemed to enhance every bulge and crevice.
“Great,” he said, grinning. He’d caught me ogling. He’d have to have been a blind man not to. “Same old same old, really.”
“So I’ve heard. Same old Casanova.”
“Yeah, well. When you’re good at something, why change?”
“Uh huh.” I dragged my eyes away from him and pretended to be vastly interested in the rest of the shop. His very presence made me feel a little dizzy, so I crossed my arms over my chest to steady myself.
It’s weird with addictions. How when you know something is bad for you, you still have a craving for it. Even years after quitting smoking, a smoker will still crave cigarettes. An alcoholic will always hear the bottle calling. Sean Graham was my addiction. And I was Jonesing. What pissed me off is that he knew it.
I glanced at him to see him watching me and wearing that same, cocky smile he’d always worn when he knew he had me.
I kept my face neutral and looked down at my watch. “I’ve gotta get going.”
Jack came walking over to us. “He’ll be all right here, Leah. I’ll keep watch over him.”
“Jack, thanks so much. Really.”
“No bother. He’s smart and I could use an extra pair of hands around here. I think we can keep him from being bored.”
I looked over at Jesse, already getting into the ins and outs of building motorcycles as explained by Patrick. “I know he’s in good hands. The best.”
I let my eyes move over Sean again and then felt myself sigh as I began my retreat. “Okay. I’ll be back later, guys.”
“Leah,” I heard Sean say.
I squeezed my eyes shut. Damn. Almost a clean getaway. I turned around and regarded him as casually as I could pull off.
“We should get together sometime. You know, catch up on old times.”
“Yeah. Sometime,” I said, non-committal.
“What are you doing later?”
I shoved down the desire to jump at the chance to be with him, every cell in my being drawn to him like a moth to the flame. “I’m working.”
“Oh.” He lifted his chin a little. This was clearly not something he was used to. I doubted that any woman declined any kind of invitation from him.
“Well, maybe some other time, then.”
“Yeah. Later,” I tossed over my shoulder and walked out the door on unsteady legs.
* * *
Back in the day, Sean had been part of Jack’s crew. He lived a couple of streets from where Jack lived, which was only a couple of streets away from where I lived. What a difference a couple of streets makes. Mine was a blue collar, working class neighborhood where the men worked hard and played even harder, and women worked even harder, trying to replace the
money the men spent while they were playing so hard. It was an honest living. Jack’s street was pretty similar to ours, if maybe a little worse for the wear.
A couple of streets over, the dregs of human life existed. This was an area where people made their living bootlegging booze or selling drugs or whatever they could to make a buck. There were some families who seemed to always be able to survive, even though nobody really knew where they were getting the money to do it. They were the creepiest people of all, because you never knew what they were up to, and the evil you know is always far more comfortable than the evil you don’t.
Jack and I had started hanging out when I got out of juvie hall. He’d been released first, since he’d been there longer than I had for the same offense. The difference was that he hadn’t been trying to get caught and I had.
I don’t know exactly what had happened to me that day. I’d been standing in the girl’s room at school, leaning against a sink and smoking a cigarette. We had about five minutes between classes. Usually I had a few puffs, ground the cigarette out and put it back in my pack for later, then carried on to my next class. My next class was math, which I hated with a white-hot fury pretty much unmatched by anything else. I was failing. Again. This was my second year in ninth grade math and I still couldn’t get it.
Probably part of the reason I couldn’t get it was that I just didn’t give a shit anymore. Most subjects I could get through without cracking a book. Math, I’d have to work at. And I just didn’t have the energy or the inclination. I couldn’t see what the hell math had to do with anything. I could do simple math, which is all I figured I’d ever really need in life anyway. After all, there were calculators, weren’t there?
I couldn’t sit through one more math class. I just couldn’t do it. In fact, I was certain I couldn’t sit through another class of any kind. So when the five minutes were up and the bathroom was empty, I just kept leaning against that sink, feeling a pressure building in my head. Finally, when the butt had come dangerously close to burning my fingers, I tossed it into a toilet and headed out of the bathroom, down the hall and out the door toward the teacher’s parking area.
I made straight for the principal’s black BMW. Luckily, he’d figured that nobody was stupid enough to go anywhere near his car and had left the door unlocked. I hot-wired the car just like I’d seen in the movies. I’d always been technically inclined that way.
I drove the BMW around the block several times, honking the entire time and blasting rock music out the windows until I got people’s attention. When I saw the cops coming for me, I parked it down the street from the school and sat until they approached me.
I really don’t know why I did it. All I can say is that I couldn’t stand to go through another day the same way I had been for five years. Going through the motions. My father never looking at me. Susie’s shadow following me even when she hadn’t been there for years. I just couldn’t do it. Something had to change. Drastically.
It did. My father stopped talking to me.
I also met Jack.
We were from the same area but had never met. It wasn’t uncommon for kids from the same area to never meet. You could live on the same street your entire lives and never meet. That summer, the stars had aligned just right and Jack, Sean, Patrick, and I became a force to be reckoned with.
* * *
“Oh, no. Please tell me we don’t have to do this.”
“No, we don’t have to do this,” Callahan said. “You have to do this. Just because you’ve proven yourself to be a hard-ass doesn’t mean you get off the hook for finishing proper training in the repossession business.”
I looked at the transport truck that sat in the driveway of the weathered house in the outskirts of town. The house was little more than a shoddy cabin. Some pretty frightening folk live in this area. I began hearing dueling banjos playing in my head. “Not this one, Cal. Anything else, not transport trucks.”
He eyed me. “You’re not scared, are you?”
“No. Look, truckers saved my ass when those bikers were after me, in case you’ve forgotten. It just seems wrong to repossess a transport truck now. I feel a kind of … kinship with them.”
Callahan rolled his eyes. “Please.”
“I do,” I said. “Besides, I don’t have a trucker’s license.”
He laughed out loud. “Like that would ever stop you!”
I glared at him.
“Leah. A career in auto recovery is going to sometimes involve repossessing transport trucks.”
I slid down a little behind the wheel of the tow truck, sulking.
“Those suckers are expensive to buy and really expensive to run. It happens a lot,” Cal explained.
This didn’t make me feel any better. “God. I’m not gonna have a friend left in the world pretty soon.”
“Welcome to auto recovery,” Cal said.
I sighed heavily, grabbed my Slim Jim and lock lifter from the back, then climbed out of the tow. “Hand me my picks.” I eyed the truck. “What if he’s sleeping in it?”
Cal handed me my pack of assorted picks, perfect for manipulating the inner mechanisms of practically any lock. “Guess you’ll need to use your sparkling personality, then.”
“Gee. Thanks.” I walked slowly but with purpose toward the transport truck. It was dusk and a lamp burned near the front window of the cabin. I could make out the flickering images on a television as I approached. Looked like the trucker was inside, watching TV. Of course, it could be a family member. Jethro or Jeb or some other back hills name.
I quickened my pace, making my way to the truck quickly now. Like any repo job, this one had to be done fast. I really didn’t want a confrontation with the trucker. I pictured him being the one who’d rallied the other three trucks to help me on the freeway that day. I could see the hurt expression on his face when he realized I was taking his truck.
However, it could also be the other one. The one who seemed to instantly dislike me because I was a woman on a motorcycle. He might not look hurt. He might look homicidal.
I shoved these thoughts aside, hoisted myself up and reached for the door handle. I breathed a sigh of relief. The door was open. I pulled myself into the truck. I couldn’t believe my luck. The keys were in the ignition. Of course! Who would steal a transport truck? Especially one out here. I restrained myself from whooping with glee. This might be easier than I thought. I held my breath and turned the key. The engine roared to life.
Just then, the door to the cabin flew open and a big, heavy man came running out. My first thought was, Oh shit. I couldn’t help but think that this guy spent way too much time on the road eating fast food. He was huge and I doubted there was much muscle beneath all the jiggling fat. If he was able to climb up and launch himself at me, I was done for.
I put the truck in reverse and it shot backward, thankful that I’m a really tall woman. I scanned the area. I hadn’t seen another home around this one and hoped I didn’t plow down any trees. Thankfully, there was lots of room to maneuver the truck around toward the road. I glanced back at the man in time to see another taller but not much slimmer man point a rifle toward the truck. I ducked and the passenger window exploded. I felt glass in my hair and figured that my scalp must be cut several times over but I was too pumped up to feel any pain. I peeked over the wheel and headed out to the road.
Another, wiry man stepped out into the middle of the road and pointed a rifle at the windshield. I ducked but kept on going. There was no way I was going to stop. Not out here in hickland. God knew what would happen to me. If old Vernon or Avery wanted to get run over, or make that “runned over”, then that was his prerogative. I wasn’t stopping.
The windshield exploded and I felt more glass fall on me in a jagged shower. I kept driving, hoping the good old mountain boy--I’d run out of appropriate names for the stereotypical hillbilly by that point--had enough sense to get out of the way.
I guess he did, because he shot out a back tire.
> I drove on, putting my foot into it before they shot out anymore tires, hoping the truck would hold up long enough to get me the hell out of town.
It didn’t take long before the good old boys were following me in two weathered pick-up trucks, coming up alongside me fast. One of them tipped his baseball hat before pointing his rifle up at me. I stomped the gas pedal and ducked as low as I could.
I heard more shots but they sounded further away. I sat up a little and peeked into the side mirror. Both trucks had stopped. One was lopsided on the road, the other was turned on its side in the ditch alongside the road. I poked my head out the window just as Cal rode up behind me in the tow. He waved his gun around out his window, and although I couldn’t see his face, I knew he was smiling from ear to ear.
I gave a loud whoop as I drove away from the good old boys who were now all standing in the middle of the road, shouting what I assumed to be impolite things.
One thing was for sure. I was having one hell of a good time.
I was thrilled to have made it to the repo depot in one piece.
“Good job,” Cal said as he walked toward the transport.
“Yeah, for almost getting my head blown off.” I climbed down from the cab, my nerves still singing under my skin.
“Hey, you wanted this job. Besides, I had your back.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” I shook my head and glass tinkled onto the ground.
He walked over to me. “Let me see.”
“I’m fine. It’s just a bit of glass.” I tried waving him off, but he kept coming.
“You’re bleeding. Come on in. Let’s get some peroxide on those cuts.”
